1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a high-frequency dielectric heating device and an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the printing speed of commercial inkjet printers is further increasing, there is a need to dry images, formed on a recording medium such as a sheet by using ink, at a high speed. To dry images, formed by using ink, at a high speed, it is known to use, for example, a high-frequency dielectric heating technique that uses the difference in dielectric loss.
Furthermore, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2014-217989 discloses an inkjet device that includes a dielectric heating oscillator, which generates a high-frequency voltage, and a dielectric heating unit that includes multiple electrodes, which are arranged in parallel and to which a high-frequency voltage is applied.
However, conventionally, as heat is uniformly applied to a printed material where the amount of ink is different from area to area, insufficient drying or excessive drying of ink occurs so that the print quality is degraded, or as a high-frequency voltage is applied to an area where there is no ink or the area that is dried enough so that unnecessary electric power is consumed.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need to provide a high-frequency dielectric heating device and an image forming apparatus that make it possible to reduce the power consumption without degrading the print quality.